The project described in the GitHub repository turns a Gemtek W1700K (hardware revision 1.x) or W1700K2 (revision 2.1) Wi‑Fi 7 router into a software‑defined radio receiver. According to the source text, the router’s MediaTek MT7996 radio captures raw 14‑bit complex IQ data at sample rates of 40, 80, 160 or 320 Msps, independent of the local oscillator and filter settings. The Airoha AN7581 system‑on‑chip then transports the data over a 10 GbE link: the radio DMAs into a 1 GiB ring in DRAM, and the kernel sends each 8 KiB slice as a UDP datagram, zero‑copy, with automatic packing to 28 bits per sample pair when needed to fit the link.
The host side runs Linux with custom firmware built from the repository. The MT7996 runs only the project’s own firmware—a ROM patch, WM (radio bring‑up and band configuration) and WA (packer)—with no MediaTek code. The firmware brings the radio up from a cold power‑on by decoding MediaTek’s initialization registers, and it accepts host commands for LO frequency, sample rate, gain, filter and streaming. Switching between the 2.4 GHz band (handled by the MT7976) and the 5 GHz/6 GHz bands (handled by two MT7977s) is performed by a register write while a stream is running.
On the host, the w1700k‑stream process receives the export and provides the IQ stream to consumers via shared memory, applying an optional roll‑off correction (“flatten”) to the samples. The w1700k‑spectrum service computes a 262,144‑point FFT on every sample at 100 frames per second and serves a live spectrum and waterfall display through a browser UI, with controls for tuning, gain and filtering placed alongside the visualisation. The sdr‑recv tool can record the stream for later analysis.
To use the router as an SDR, the user needs a W1700K/W1700K2 unit, a 3.3 V USB‑serial adapter on its console header, an Ethernet cable to the lan3 port for installation, and a 10 GbE NIC on the host (e.g., an Intel X710 with a copper SFP+ module) connected to the router’s wan port. Installation involves backing up the NAND, flashing the custom firmware, and preserving the radio calibration; a restore script can revert the unit to stock firmware. The source notes that the firmware is receive‑only, keeps the MAC transmit path disabled, and warns against connecting an antenna directly to sensitive equipment without attenuation.